Many years ago I was a tram driver and worked shifts. Glad I did it when I was young, it ain't real healthy and you get very tired. You also find out just how much the world is organised around those who work 9-5, bit hard getting to a sports game or going to see a band when you have a shift every afternoon and evening from Wed to Sunday, not to mention school events or taking kids to sport or whatever.

This is what really gets me when politicians talk about how we shouldn't pay penalty rates. They have no idea, maybe the pollies who want this should be forced to work rotating shifts for 6 months and see how it affects them.

Used to do shift work many years ago, 1 week every month it was a 11pm-7am shift. Absolutely killer having to change your body clock like this. I read an article how bad this is for your health and is on par to smoking, and it also ages you faster and lowers your life expectancy. Glad I quit the job after a couple of years.

Afternoon shift wasn't too bad when I was younger but night shift was a killer for me too!. My first real job at the Anz bank in the city had 3 shifts. Travel was long also about an hour and a half one way so on the night shift all I would do was eat sleep and go to work and pretty much nothing in between. Only lasted 6 months before I got another job at Deakin Uni ( Victoria College back then) with just day and afternoon shift (to 11pm) until they phased the afternoon shift out (which I was getting to an age where I was kind of glad about).

My father was a factory worker working shift work all his life ( 6pm to 6am night shift for a lot of it). And he is fit and still kicking along at 82yo! I really don't know how he did it.

Edit: Was really interesting back then to see the city (Melb) around the clock throughout the week. The way it almost transformed itself on Fridays ( different vibe altogether) through until Sunday and then Sunday night things would slowly get back to normal ready for the working week. Just interesting.

I've done lots of shift work, and know a lot of people who do so. In my case, the worst was when we running 3 rotating shifts here around the clock. I averaged 2-3 hrs sleep per day, and had Saturday night off. That was it, for 3 years. I almost killed myself; not being able to control my diet, sleep or stimulants brought me undone in a big way (this was solely my fault and choice. Nobody makes you do these things). This has been my observation in many cases. People who can truly structure their life around their shift seem to have few if any problems, people who cant do. Typically single, or with very young children types cope best. Those with limited social lives or networks likewise. People who can leave the job behind at the end of the day (increasingly harder with our modern "connected at all times" attitudes). I'm sure there's a grouping of people who see this as the evil employer incarnate....did anyone mention greens or left labor......but they have no answers themselves and typically depend on large sacrifices from their staff/public servants to get their job done and or look good.

9-5, 5 days a week and some Saturday O/T (7-3.30 for the manual guys/girls) is a thing of a past. We must welcome our new technological globalist leaders and embrace the smart economy! It's not their fault. Blame Tim Berners-Lee, Paul Kunz and the rest of the WWW team. Now you white collar people know what it's been like for the rest of us since society decided to take responsibilty for all. Blame all of you who want to ride/drive around during the day without those pesky roadworks messing you up. Blame yourselves for wanting public transport 24/7. Water, electricity and sewerage 24/7. EMS 24/7. And so on.

But yeah, shift work sucks. Thank you to those who take it on and provide me with a superior standard of living.

Been there. Done that.5 years at sea working commercial fishing as a deckhand. Insane hours. 2 hours on deck winching, sorting, iceing and packing, 2 hours rest whilst trawling. This process could run for 5 days. Never more than 2 hours sleep at a grab. Try sleeping in a rough sea on a smelly, noisy and dirty fishing boat.Other fisheries such as deep Bass Straight scalloping typically between 24 to 36 hours of continuous sorting, bagging, storing, heavy physical work with little more than a 10 minute break. A nightmare. I experienced auditory and visual hallucinations (no drugs) on one trip, just absolute exhaustion and sleep deprivation.Local (Lakes Entrance) fishing usually entailed a 2.00am departure from home, steaming out to the fishing grounds, set-up gear, start trawling on dawn, work till nightfall, return to port, unload, go home around 8-9.00 pm, rinse and repeat for as long as the weather held out, sometimes weeks on end.The mental and physical fatigue was constant, even after 12 hours catch-up sleep, and just became a "normal" state of being you learnt to live with but never really adapted to.For a change of pace (I thought) I moved up to the Vic Alps and trained as a paid DSE (bush) firefighter.That was worse than fishing. 2003 saw the first of a succession of the massive, campaign style large scale mega fires that ran for months on end.Combine minimum 12 hour shifts rotating day/night, physically enduring work, fear and adrenaline, things came to a head around 2008. No more.

In my late 20's I did almost 3.5 years on a weekly rotation of night/back/early (excluding weekend day shift overtime). The back and early shifts were fine but unless I was very busy throughout the nightshift (technical support to production lines), I nodded off too easily. Driving home in the morning, I found I'd have to stop in at a service station for a quick 15 minutes rest.

The money was pretty good and I could deal with the lifestyle it imposed but eventually I had to call a halt to it and get out such was the demands on my health where I felt in a constant state of fatigue. Now in my early 50's I haven't forgotten that period in my career and those who do rotating shifts have my total empathy.

I agree with DavidS and pollies not having a clue of what's involved when cutting penalty rates.

Don't know if you call farming shift work, yesterday started 630 went to 4pm, then started again midnight til 530am, then started at 11 this morn til 630pm. Fixing breakdowns on farming plant etc, loading grain etc you end up pretty tired after a few days.

while I didn't exactly do shift work (as in overnights) I used to to do Mon-Wed 5PM till midnight, then Sat-Sun 6am till 3pm for many years (no breaks, sole operator of servo). Man that used to be bad. (Probably 1/2 the reason I bombed out of uni doing that 9-4 mon-fri.)Also had variety of those shifts from time to time over the years (eg the same Sat/sun 6-3 shft, but after a 5-11pm shift at another site, even though we were supposed to have a 12 break...yeah right.

The only safe option left is to become a full time bicycle riding hobo

I used to do long hours as a developer/designer and it wasn't good, felt incredibly tired at the end of it. I still do long hours if I factor in the commute time I have as well, that's also pretty long. The timetable changes have made my commute now much longer. But it's only for a few more months when work moves closer to home.

Another thing is the always connected way some workers are. You've got to resist that, not answer emails after hours if at all possible. You need your own time free from that. And you'll be more productive when you are at work if you are fully rested.

Top_Bhoy wrote:I agree with DavidS and pollies not having a clue of what's involved when cutting penalty rates.

Exactly right, and they also have the luxury of being taken about in a white Caprice everywhere, or helicopter trips paid for by the taxpayer (Bronwyn Bishop), so they are woefully out of touch with the working class. Makes me more amazed that some people bend over backwards to support politicians so much.

I've been doing shiftwork for my entire working life - about 35 years now.

How you cope with shiftwork depends on the shift pattern and how well you can manage your fatigue.

My current pattern is 12 hour shifts. Two day shifts followed by two night shifts then six days off. My shifts start at 5am or 5pm. The only issue with this is that you pretty much work, sleep, and eat from when you start your first day shift to when you finish you last night shift.

Been a round the clock shift worker since 1986ish. Standard roster is fine, no extended shifts and FAID approved for fatigue management. It's when there's gaps in the roster that trouble starts. Pretty much down to mgmts poor recruiting and not having sufficient qualified relief staff

...whatever the road rules, self-preservation is the absolute priority for a cyclist when mixing it with motorised traffic.London Boy 29/12/2011

Just finished 8 years of night shift and have the last month doing nothing much before starting my new job in about a week. Already noticed some big differences health wise, slept 10 hours for the first time in ages, having dreams which seems to be a sign of deep sleep which hasn't happened in ages, and a lot of good changes in gut and bowel stuff. I've seen the light, I won't be doing it again regardless of how good the money is.

We do 2 14hr night shifts followed by 2 10 hr day shifts. After the night shifts I have trouble sleeping at night again and go to work very tired.I am on my first day off today and got to sleep OK at about 2300 last night. My wife woke me up twice ( we had words )I had one at 0100 this morn and slept until 0930.The previous night I had one before going to bed but woke for a p1ss at 0200. Needed a restavit to get back to sleep.Our roster rates pooly on the FAID score.It is our choice to change it to a forward cadence hopefully, still bad but markedly better. It just means starting days off jet lagged.About to order some time release tablets https://au.iherb.com/pr/Natrol-Melatoni ... lets/22708

warthog1 wrote:It is our choice to change it to a forward cadence hopefully, still bad but markedly better. It just means starting days off jet lagged.

Yes, but you're under no pressure to sleep well. That alone can help people get to sleep. As you may know, one of the worst attitudes to sleep is to try to get to sleep. The more one tries, the harder it can become. An older colleague (now retired) once taught me that you should lie down and just relax. Even if you don't sleep, it still does the body benefit and in many cases people do slip off to sleep for some time. They just can't remember it, so it appears to them that they didn't sleep at all.

Also lets face it. You'd be doing all your customers a favour by changing the roster as you'll be more awake/sharp on the job. In your line of work that might help to save someone's life.

Backward rotating shift rosters are the worst IMO and just contribute to more accidents at, or travelling to or from work. I aim to never do one again.

A tip I learnt - also from the same older colleague - on forward rotating 12 hour rosters, was to sleep as little as possible during the day on the first day off after the last night shift. That way you get back into a normal sleeping pattern faster.

warthog1 wrote:It is our choice to change it to a forward cadence hopefully, still bad but markedly better. It just means starting days off jet lagged.

Yes, but you're under no pressure to sleep well. That alone can help people get to sleep. As you may know, one of the worst attitudes to sleep is to try to get to sleep. The more one tries, the harder it can become. An older colleague (now retired) once taught me that you should lie down and just relax. Even if you don't sleep, it still does the body benefit and in many cases people do slip off to sleep for some time. They just can't remember it, so it appears to them that they didn't sleep at all.

Also lets face it. You'd be doing all your customers a favour by changing the roster as you'll be more awake/sharp on the job. In your line of work that might help to save someone's life.

Backward rotating shift rosters are the worst IMO and just contribute to more accidents at, or travelling to or from work. I aim to never do one again.

A tip I learnt - also from the same older colleague - on forward rotating 12 hour rosters, was to sleep as little as possible during the day on the first day off after the last night shift. That way you get back into a normal sleeping pattern faster.

I used to do that way back when. Sit up and potter on the computer etc. It used to work better but I was also alot younger.Branch meeting soon and I will be arguing the case.Thanks for the post You are correct with the pressure to sleep. It is a feedback loop and a terrible feeling. That is why I have started using sleepers to counteract the situation, Not a good long term solution

foo on patrol wrote:I think that I may look into those Warty. How long does one work for, if it is 4-5hrs, then that would be great.

Foo

They get me to sleep no probs. I have only taken them twice.First time I woke again 3hrs later and couldn't sleep. I knew I had to be up in 4 hours time and it stressed me out, so that didn't help.Next time there was no work the next day and I slept solid for 7 hours. I have just ordered some time release Melatonin and I'll see how that goes. I can't find over what period it is absorbed by the body, but I assume it wouldn't be appropriate for Heavy Vehicle driving whereas the rapid onset should be.

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